Archive for the ‘elderly diet’ Category

Residential dining has been transformed in recent years with the introduction of Asian and Italian food and the opportunity in some places for friends and relatives to dine with residents.

For generations of a certain age the meat and two veg menu remains a firm first choice, so a story in the online Care Industry News magazine about a vegan day soon had me hooked.

Meat-free hot dogs and pecan pie were top of the menu at a vegan festival held at Barchester’s Harper Fields Care Home in Balsall Common, where staff, residents, family and friends came together to celebrate World Vegan Day and try something a little bit different.

A large marquee was set up at the home and filled with hay bales, scarecrows, pumpkins, blankets, cushions and hand-painted signs. Relaxing folk music played as residents and guests arrived wrapped in blankets, hats and scarves to enjoy the festival on the crisp and sunny autumn afternoon.

The event was organised by the care home’s activities coordinator, Hannah Mulholland (Barchester Healthcare’s Activities Coordinator of the Year 2016), who is a vegan and found that the people she cares for at Harper Fields were always curious about what she eats, especially on celebratory occasions such as bonfire night and Christmas.

At the event, guests were served up vegan hot dogs and onions, curried beans, jacket potatoes, mulled hot apple juice, hot chocolate, toffee apples and Hannah made her signature pecan pie with soya pouring cream. Everything served was 100 per cent plant based with no meat, fish or dairy to be seen.

The report says it all went down well.

Well done Hannah. It’s great that our seniors are exposed to new experiences, though I suspect when I’m a fully-fledged senior I’ll still be demanding my bacon butties and dare I say . . . meat and two veg.

There is. however, culinary changes afoot. Most of my members’ homes in the Midlands are introducing more varied food, but woe betide those which don’t serve a roast on Sunday!